"1. Psik after the word ואכל, to allude to that beside the eating, the locusts also ruined and destroyed.

In the verse (Shemos 10:5):

5. And they will obscure the view of the earth, and no one will be able to see the earth, and they will eat the surviving remnant, which remains for you from the hail, and they will eat all your trees that grow out of the field.

Certainly this alludes to an addition which is oral. And it appears that it is understood with that which is translated in Targum Yonasan the word ואכל as וישיצי (which is not like Onkelos who translated ויֵכול which means only eating). And in truth, also in the explanation of the Seforno he writes upon וְאָכַל אֶת כָּל הָעֵץ (at the end of the pasuk):

17. And My fury will rage against them on that day, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them,and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will befall them, and they will say on that day, 'Is it not because our God is no longer among us, that these evils have befallen us?'

As an aside, it an interesting editorial mixup that ascribed the pasuk in Tehillim to sefer Devarim, and copied the incorrect pasuk within the perek for it.

Of course, I view this psik as a munach legarmeih. And darshening every munach legarmeih makes the phenomenon much more plentiful than simply the psiks, and thus potentially less out of the ordinary and worthy of derash. I still like mentioning when people darshentrup. And I think it is telling for remez in general that even when seeing something which is not legitimately there, a clever and creative person will be able to point out what it is a remez to. Perhaps this raises questions about the legitimacy of the entire enterprise.

Certainly without the remez, the word אכל has a wider semantic range that just 'eat'.

"17. In אך ביום הראשון תשביתו שאור מבתיכם כי, the psik after the word כי associates it with what comes before, to inform that there is a manner of removal from thirty days before.

In the pasuk (Shmos 12:15):

15. For seven days you shall eat unleavened cakes, but on the preceding day you shall clear away all leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leaven from the first day until the seventh day that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

19. For seven days, leavening shall not be found in your houses, for whoever eats leavening that soul shall be cut off from the community of Israel, both among the strangers and the native born of the land.

Rab Judah also said in Rab's name: He who sets sail, and he who sets out in a [caravan] company,

before thirty days [prior to Passover], is not bound to remove [the leaven]; if within thirty days, he is

bound to remove [it].

"

To state this idea more explicitly, the gematria of כי is 30, and the vertical bar separates the ki from what follows with a pause, such that in each of these cases, we will attach it to the preceding statement, which is that chametz should not be found in your house. A nice remez.

Again, this is not strictly a psik, but is rather a munach legarmeih, such that rather than there being a semantic cause for the break, it is a regular pausal accent brought about by syntax, verse length, the context of other trup symbols, and the distance to the end of the clause it is dividing. And if one wants to find a remez, the odds are that in the entirety of Rabbinic literature, one can find a remez. And if not, one can simply avoid discussing the particular item and focus on remazim in other pastures.

And it is possible to say that this hinds that not all of Israel was there, for Datan and Aviram still remained in Egypt, as it stated in Targum Yonasan ben Uziel on the verse [in Beshalach] (Shemot 14:3):

3. And Pharaoh will say about the children of Israel, They are trapped in the land. The desert has closed in upon them.

Chazal darshen that which is written כְּשֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת, like six hundred, that it is as if {if one could say it} Hashem was with them and completed the sum of six hundred thousand. And as Moreinu Harav Yitzchak Karo za"l explained in Toldos Yitzchak regarding that which was stated in Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer (perek tet' lamed {??} that these words are coming to explain that which is written כְּשֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף. For in Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer there is the statement in the following language:

When Israel ascended from Egypt, all the males gave their lineage, 600,000, minus 1. What did Hashem do? He entered into the count with them, such that their count was 600,000.

See there, and in Torah Shleima there, item 579.

And behold, in the verse there, it is not fitting to explain the deficiency in the count by aspect of missing Datan and Aviram, but here, by way of drush which is given over to be darshened when it does not go against the halacha, I would essay to explain that therefore it is written כְּשֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף רַגְלִי as they traveled from Raamses, because of Datan and Aviram's absence at that time, for behold, according to Targum Yonasan, only after that, when Pharaoh pursued after the Israelites, did Datan and Aviram go and mingle within the Israelites who left Egypt. And according to our words, it is possible to explain why, in parashat Behaalotecha, it is written that Moshe Rabbenu said (in Bemidbar 11:21) שש מאות אלף רגלי העם אשר אנכי בקרבו {without the כ}, for Datan and Aviram were already there."

All in all, a nice construction, despite from my repeated objection that this is a munach legarmeih rather than a psik.

1 comment:

Perhaps it's not a so-called p'sik that's the issue, but a pausal note, (albeit level 4)on a word whose meaning seems conjunctive that's somewhat anomalous. For example it would seem to make more sense for u'l'chol-b'nei to be hyphenated, with a munach, and yisrael to have a revia. The other instances could conceivably have a darga instead of a legarmei - though admittedly that is a much less common sequence. I've never thought about before, but it does seem strange that there can't be more than one "ordinary" munach before a revia - as there can be before a zakef-katon - as a default position - perhaps this is for musical reasons.

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parshablog is published by (rabbi) josh waxman (joshwaxman [at] yahoo [dot] com), a grad student in Revel, a grad student in a Phd program in computer science at CUNY. i recently received semicha from RIETS. this blog is devoted to parsha as well as whatever it is i am currently learning.